Every Ghost You've Ever Met
by tore-my-yellow-dress
Summary: It's the first holidays that are always the hardest.


**A/N- I don't know what this is but I'm gonna blame orbythesea and pebblysand because without them I don't know if I'd ship Alicia/Finn as much as I do while still holding onto AW. Shoot me. (But not like how Will Gardner was shot.) Disclaimed.**

* * *

><p>The dreams always end the same.<p>

Rain pitter patter pitter pattering, tessellating the fogged windows of an apartment with a leaky roof in May, maybe June, had to have been that spring before 2L. And his eyes brown like dark chocolate, the kind of thing that melts in mouths and makes for wanton pleading, _more, more, more. _Will's fingers contrast, a talisman- ice cold when they tickle the flesh of her cheeks, and Alicia's calves brush the cheap sheets and she's young, in her sleep. She's always so young. He's always so alive.

"Alicia," Will's voice comes like an avalanche, encasing, smothering, _cold, but his eyes are so warm, so welcoming, _and she knows when he says her name: she's going to wake up in a few seconds.

He brushes his thumb across her upper lip, almost sad. "You've got shit to do."

/

It was snowing the day he died.

Alicia's heels click clack against the concrete in moving from the courthouse steps to her car, relishing the biting air, pulling her wool coat tighter around her torso for appearance's sake. Roughed, pink cheeks, wind burn, and Alicia's lips chapped as can be. She's never let her mouth get this bad before, consistent with her gloss, her balm, but these days all she needs is a red rouge and a good debate.

Missing the summer in the same way one misses a safety blanket, a cigarette, a seat belt. Simpler to avoid Wrigley Field and tune out of the World Series, ignoring Zach because he doesn't deserve her attention right now, doesn't deserve her sympathy. She doesn't look at the headers on the mail he sends because there's no time for the things in the back of the closet, under the rug, beneath the bed.

There's no time for any of this.

It's November and it's making it harder to breathe, and there's no use in getting out of court and grinning plastic at her client, slinking down the sidewalk like a criminal, making it to her car and leaning against the door and steadying inhales and exhales because three years. Three years, to the day, since condensation and ripped panties and _this is crazy romantic. _Her ears sing with the next gust of wind, blowing back her hair, ripping the dark strands she'd so carefully fixed this morning, and she's gotta get in her car. She's gotta get in her car and out of sight because photographers are supposed to be following her every move because of the campaign and they can't see her like this, tears in her eyes, the massacre of his heart all over her fucking hands.

It keeps hitting her that he's gone and he's not breathing anymore and even if it's gotten easier not to remember as much it still looms, and it doesn't matter if it's been months and his body is probably rotting in the ground, it doesn't matter that it'd been over for twenty years and officially for three, it doesn't matter if he was her friend or her soul mate or just a man that looked good in a suit and made her body feel like a holy thing. It gets down the crux of the situation: the way she'll never hear his laugh again, and it is November.

There was a smattering of snow, early in the morning the day that he died.

Alicia remembers the alerts on her phone the night before, and now it's so funny, it's so, so hilarious, that the night before he was gunned down in a court she'd taken the time to view the weather alerts. Wasting time, so much wasted time. The precipitation came around six, melted by noon.

He must've run in the snow that morning. She'd realized it that evening, sitting across from Peter on a couch that felt too small for all the grief in her body, let alone to accommodate a man she didn't know the soul of, didn't want in her keeping. Sometimes, when she's sleepy enough, Alicia imagines a different universe, where she wakes at six and goes over to Will's apartment, and is there when he comes in, sweaty, snowflakes in his hair. "Give me a kiss," she tells him.

"Just give me a kiss."

The day he'd died had been the last snow of the spring.

Alicia sits in her car with tracks of some kind of mourning song streaking her cheeks, more wrinkles around her eyes than there have ever been before, and she leans forward to rest her forehead against the steering wheel, imagining. She thinks of the date, and _this is the happiest I've ever been, _and how New York is always so beautiful this time of year, and the sky never falls asleep alone, the people and the city to call it home, and Alicia looks up to find white floating around her car, creeping in and beginning to dust the streets. She doesn't waste time checking weather alerts anymore, but the gray sky should have been a sign.

She's not a religious person. Worse things exist than sin.

But Alicia watches the snow and rewinds the film of her conscious two years and he leans over and kisses her on the mouth, chapped lips like her own, his cold hands creeping up her skirt, secrets, secret things. She imagines pressing a hand against his chest, through the fabric of his suit jacket, not bloodstained, just a suit jacket. He's a sharp dressed man, and he smiles at her like Will, like her Will, and her palm rests against a beating heart. She imagines his heart beating galump galump galump.

She imagines him saying, "I can't give you a kiss, but I'll give you a billion snowflakes."

This is always enough.

/

"It's the first holidays that are always the hardest," Finn mutters into his shot glass before tossing it back. She knows he's talking about his sister, overdosing on her own destruction. Maybe about the baby, about the Christmas after and all the onesies and a new crib and empty, void, vanished.

He looks a hundred miles away, and she feels that way, too.

Sometimes, Alicia thinks about grabbing him by his lapels and kissing him to see if he tastes the way that he feels to her, the way that he makes her feel. Comfortable and soothing, Vicks rub and rum on a toothache. Alicia wipes her mouth he wakes up. Alicia draws his eyes to her lips and he follows her every move like she's some creature he doesn't quite understand, but still fascinated, still identifying. Finn mostly thinks about what kind of a betrayal it would be; kissing the woman the man that died in your arms loved. Sometimes Alicia looks at him and thinks about their skeletons having drinks together.

Mostly, Alicia thinks about going to sleep and never waking up again.

But they don't talk about any of these things, see.

They talk about everything except the things that make them hurt.

/

Zach calls her three weeks before Thanksgiving and asks if it's okay that he comes home.

"It's all up to you," she answers him, taking a pause, knowing she shouldn't because it's spiteful and so Veronica, but she can't help turning into her mother, can't help being petty. "I'm sure your sister would like that."

"Mom," Zach murmurs. "Please don't hate me." There's a note of genuine depression in his voice, and it makes her gut churn before she remembers trusting him, defending him, _Zach isn't like that, Eli. I know my son._

She hears the words and thinks about, _"please don't end up hating me," _knows deep, deep in the dark place in her heart no one ever touches that it doesn't matter the intentions, only the wreckage. All the wreckage, all the disdain and torment, and it never once mattered what one sets out to do, just the bullets, the blood, the death. Alicia thinks about Neesa getting pregnant.

She thinks about Neesa getting pregnant and Zach stepping up to the plate and that changing her entire life, by default, because she would have supported him wholeheartedly, redesigned her life around helping him, and that would have meant she might not have started her own firm, or no.

It might've meant Will would've come to her, put aside the games and battles over clients and it would have been snowing, like it was the first time they'd kissed. It would've been snowing, and he would've looked at her and forgiven her with one look, and he would've took her in his arms and whispered into her brow, "_I know how hard this is for you. I know this is bringing up so many old ghosts, about what happened spring break of 2L, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you have to remember."_

But Will never knew what happened the spring break of 2L, didn't know about the blood coating her jeans or the ER visit, doesn't know anything about anything, because Will was in Baltimore during spring break. Will is also still dead, and Zach still lied to her face, so. It's all moot. Zach stood by and watched his girlfriend abort their child.

"I don't hate you, Zach," she tries to assure, but it's half there. "I love you. You're my son. I'm just disappointed in you. And I definitely don't trust you."

/

Two days after Thanksgiving Diane flashes a Christmas card at everyone, wants them to see 'how big Lilly's getting'. Curiosity washes down the faint buzz she still has from getting so stone cold drunk on the holiday, so tipsy she couldn't see her face in the mirror for a solid twenty-four hours, and it's better this way, but Lilly. Who's Lilly?

Alicia sneaks a peek, eyes squinting, wishing she had her glasses. It's a lovely little girl, big eyes and a pretty mouth, perched between two cream colored rags of dogs. Alicia focuses enough on the print, and the blood leaves her cheeks, mouth dry. "Sarah sent you that?" she asks Diane.

"Yes," Diane nods empathetically. "We keep in touch."

Diane remembers something then, eyebrows raising. "Actually, Alicia, she's wanted to talk to you."

"Me?" Her heart thuds, and it's silly, how embarrassed she feels. How ashamed.

"Just to catch up," Diane informs, smiles kindly. "His sisters are keeping up with your campaign. They're…excited for you. They know you meant a lot to their brother."

There it is, that lump in the back of her throat, and sometimes she sits in her office and that's all she can feel, strangled. Overwhelmed. Monsters leeching on her vocal chords, _Will, you're talking about it, please keep talking about it, never stop talking about it. _

"Tell them…thank you," Alicia manages, it's all she can manage. Lilly looks a little like Will in the eyes and Alicia can morph her into a baby with a raspy giggle and grappling hands, baby milk teeth and Will kissing her on the forehead, whispering, _"I love you both so much." _

Family, his family, his family could have been-

Alicia closes her eyes and turns on her heel.

/

Alicia overhears Grace tell a girl in her bible study, "I think Judas loved Jesus."

She wants to tell Grace that she agrees, that she knows the truth, the fact, but she says nothing.

Grace doesn't need to know about any of that, anyway.

/

Alicia tries very hard not to look at the guns.

Kurt is talking, and she's being irresponsible, not listening. She's wasting his time, but her eyes keep flickering to the barrels, and shit, she wasn't even there the day of the shooting, she wasn't even there and there's so many things to be worried with. Eli and the office and playing politics with Peter, and she's State's Attorney, she can't just meet with clients. She has better things to do, but Jeffrey Grant-

Jeffrey Grant is on trial, and her world is upside down, right now. It just is, can't be helped.

It can't be helped that she looks at the metal and hears the sound, hears him saying, _"Alicia, Alicia," _and he doesn't make sound because he's drowning in his own blood but his mouth is moving and there's red and he's pale and he's dying, and all because of-

"Mrs. Florrick?" Kurt grabs her attention harshly, and it's at that moment Alicia realizes:

She's on the floor.

She's not crying, but she's shaking, and her legs are folded beneath her, like her ankles can't hold her weight, and Kurt looks at her like he pities her, and she hates it. She tries to get up but everything is Jello. She tries to talk but her mouth is cotton, and the guns are everywhere. The guns are everywhere, and she might be having a panic attack. It's a possibility.

A water bottle is pressed to her lips.

She drinks.

"You weren't in the shooting, right?" Kurt inquires, cautious, and God, her face heats up.

Alicia shakes her head. She wishes she could be anywhere but here- the States Attorney of Illinois trembling in the floor- at a bar with Finn, singing Jesus songs with Grace, anything. Kurt sits there with her as she continues to calm down, grow more embarrassed by the minute.

"Hey?" he catches her attention. "You and Will, right?" he asks her smoothly, like it's no big deal.

Her eyes are trained to the floor, and she tries to say yes but she doesn't know if he hears her.

Something filling her lungs, drowning her. Guilt, it might be. Guilt and sadness and regret and loss and the worst kind of pain anybody could ever humanly suffer, and Kurt presses a comforting hand to her shoulder, startling her to looking up. Kurt's eyes are sincere, and Alicia understands, then, that even if Diane is a bleeding heart, Kurt is a bleeding heart, too. They're made of the same things.

"Will was a good man," he offers up. "You shouldn't have to go through this all because the Grant kid couldn't get a handle on his mental game. People don't just have a bad day and start shooting people."

Alicia can't help it that she flinches, and her gaze flickers to the gun on the lowest wall, how it gleams.

"You're afraid?" Kurt asks her, comprehending. "You're afraid of the guns?"

"No," Alicia finds her voice. She purses her lips, and her voice is so, so hoarse. "I hate them."

"You ever shot one before?"

Alicia shivers, moves to stand. "No desire," she says darkly. This time last year there was a Christmas party and Ashbaugh was giving her money and she kept hurting him, all this hurt, all this fucking hurt, and-

"Will knew how to use one," Kurt tells her. "I'd worked with him a few times. I think it's one of the reasons he'd tried to disarm-

"Please," Alicia stops him, and when she closes her eyes tears leak fresh and, "Damn it. Damn it. I should've let somebody else do this. I'm sorry for taking up your time, Mr. McVeigh, I—

"No," the man shakes his head, respectful. "It's fine. Don't worry about it."

"If you ever want lessons," he tells her on her way out, "don't hesitate to call me."

She knows she never will.

/

The defense isn't good enough, in the end.

The defense isn't good enough and even if it was never fair Alicia knows that Jeffrey was sick in the head, was so sick, and Will tried to defend him, wanted him to be okay-

But Will is still in the ground, and he isn't here anymore, so when they give Jeffrey Grant a place on death row, Alicia goes home, pours herself a glass of wine, and promptly throws up in the sink. Because it should feel good, feel like some kind of retribution, and maybe she'll still sleep tonight, but it will always be the same dream. It was always be the same dream, and he's still gone.

But here's the part she didn't count on:

Opening her door and finding a man with blue eyes and a softer mouth than Will ever had.

Finn crosses the threshold and tells her, "Alicia, I have to do this," before taking her face in his hands and kissing her square on the mouth. She's never expected to find window when all the doors were closed, tasting new teeth, letting someone new fuck up her lipstick, all the while listening to teenagers sing _take me to the promise land, take me, take me to the promise land. _

/


End file.
